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THE BULLETIN OF THE CATHOLIC LAYMEN’S ASSOCIATION OF GEORGIA
entered and extending his hand he said: “Father, I
am very glad to see you. Of course, it was my duty
to pay the first call, but I have been away and have
just returned from Virginia. In fact, I was not aware
that a new Pastor had come.”
I preserved my gravity, I am glad to say, and said
that of course I understood he was unable to pay the
first visit, but it was all right. I talked with him for
nearly a half hour and found him a charming talker.
He had not had many advantages for education when
a boy, but he had read much and there were very
few topics on which he could not converse. He had
a very low voice and as I have said he was the last
man you would have picked out as a criminal. He
was quite a philosopher in some matters, as I found
out during my visit. I asked him if I could do any
thing for him, and he said he missed The New York
Herald. I made arrangements with a local dealer
to supply him with the paper. I may state here, that
for the few trifling things I got for him he sent me
the money on the occasion of his escape from jail the
next year. I felt sure he was a baptized Catholic,
and so one day I said: “Frank, are you not a Cath
olic?” He replied: “Yes, Father, but not a very
good one. I then asked how long it had been since
his last confession, and he told me it had been quite
a number of years. I said: “Don’t you think you
might well employ your time now in making prepara
tions for a good confession, since we will soon have
the Christmas holidays?” Frank promptly replied:
“Father, of course, when I first met you, I thought
about this, and I have been examining my conscience,
but I can not really find any sins which I have com
mitted. Frank, I answered, “you have the reputa
tion of being the most adroit and the most successful
bank burglar in the United States. It seems to me
your profession would afford material for confes
sion.” Frank answered me by stating that there were
other gentlemen in his profession who had been equal
ly successful, but he added that he could really find
no matter for confession in his work “I am merely
giving back to the plain people the money of which
they have been robbed,” he replied. “I have never
turned down an appeal for help. When I suggested
that charity was an excellent thing when you relieve
the needy by giving your own money, but when you
took money belonging to some one else to help the
poor it could scarcely be called charity, Frank said:
You know, Father, there is not an honest man in
public life today, from the President down. Every one
of the men in public office is a grafter and a thief.”
It was during the administration of Grant and the
whiskey and other rings we/; flourishing. “Now,”
continued Frank, “I am restoring to the poor the
money of which they have been robbed. Besides the
time has come in our country when there are no
honest men, and so the ordinary rules of honesty are
no longer recognized.” Many a man has put up a
less specious plea to justify his villainy than my friend
the bank burglar. My efforts to get Frank to make
his peace with God met failure. He was never rude
nor impatient, but smiled at my appeal and shook
his head. I never asked him any questions with re
gard to his adventures. One Monday morning, as I
was getting my mail, a woman told me she had been
in the jail seeing a sick woman on Sunday and Frank
called her to his cell door and asked her to tell me
to stop coming to see him. I was surprised, but of
course, I did not pay him my usual visit that day.
On the next day when I came downtown I found the
town in great excitement. Big Frank had again
escaped! That morning at 9 o clock a coach drove
up to the jail and in a moment Frank walked out of
the jail and through the corridor of the sheriff’s house,
got into the coach and drove off. As he got into
the coach he dropped his hat and something attracted
the sheriff, who was sitting in his shirt sleeves in
front of his office, in a chair tilted back against the
wall. The sheriff called to Frank to stop, but Frank
drove off rapidly. By the time the sheriff got his
buggy ready Frank was fully a mile away. But the
sheriff had a very fast horse and firing his pistol in
the air he attracted the attention of the driver, who
stopped the horse. The sheriff drove alongside and
said: “Well, Frank, I’m sorry, but you will have to
drive back with me.” When he opened the coach
door, the curtains having been down, Frank was not
in the coach. The driver was arrested, but declared
that the man got in and told him to drive slowly
through the town, but as soon as he struck the cause
way to drive as fast as possible as he must catch the
10:10 train to New York. He did as ordered and
never saw the man get out. Effort was made to catch
Frank, but without success. There seemed some
mystery about it. Some four or five months after
wards Frank was arrested in New York for a burglary
of which I think he was innocent. At any rate he
was brought back to N. He had been back a month,
but I never called on him, until one day while visiting
another prisoner, he called me as I was passing his
cell and wanted to know why I did not come to see
him. I told him I had received a message not to
call. He said he was sure I understood why he sent
that message. He did not want me to be suspected
of any complicity in his escape. I resumed my visits
and on one of them I asked him how he escaped. He
said: “If you will not mention it until I leave prison
I have no objection to telling you. And this is the
story: Every Sunday a number of women visited the
jail and held some kind of service in the corridor.
They prayed and sang hymns and then talked with
the prisoners. One of these women became most in
terested in Frank and begged him to lead a better life.
Frank told her a story of a wife and destitute children
in New York, who, on account of his being in prison,
were to be separated, the wife going to some institu
tion and the children to be sent to Texas. As a mat
ter of fact, Frank was unmarried. He said if he ever
got out he would leave New York and take his family
and go out West and lead a better life. The woman
became much more interetsed in him, and finally
Frank asked her if she could provide a place where
he could hide if he escaped from the jail. She said
she would hide him in her own house if he got out
of jail. All the plans were made except the day and
Frank told her that on the next Sunday he would
arrange for the day and hour. On the next day
Frank saw the sheriff passing through the jail and
calling him to the door showed him a bar of common
washing soap, saying: “Sheriff, just look at the kind
of soap you gave me to wash my face and hands.
Why, in New York I never paid less than 50 cents
for Colgate’s toilet soap, and just look at the stuff.
Can 1 send it to my wife to let her see how I have
come down?” “Well, Frank,” replied the sheriff,
“you don't expect me to pay 50 cents for toilet soap
for you when I am only allowed 19 cents a day for
your board by the Levy Court?” Frank asked him if
he might send the soap on to his wife in New York so
she might see what he was using, and when the sheriff
consented, he added: But I won t give you any soap
in its place for a week.” Frank said, “Well, I will
ask her to send it back.” The soap was sent to New
York, and Frank, by bribing a trusty, got possession
of the key of his cell and the key of the outer door
for a few moments and pressing each key deeply into
the soap he sent the bar to New York where two
keys were made from the mould made in the soap
and when the soap came back, Frank was provided
with the means of getting out. On the following Sun
day his lady visitor came as usual and they arranged
the particulars of his stay with her. On Tuesday
morning at 9:00, he walked out of his cell, got into
the coach and holding the door with his hand, drove
down the street. The woman was standing at her
door and Frank jumped out and went into her house
where he was concealed for a fortnight. It is cer
tainly a rather remarkable fact that no one saw him
get out of the coach, not even the negro driver.